++ Main reason to consider:

Excellent ultraportable gaming laptop package with all the important features and a nice gaming performance for a lower price.

– Main reason to avoid:

Gaming performance is quite low compared to fastest machines in this price range, like the Y510p or Sager NP7355, even up to x2.5-3. If what you want is the highest gaming performance in the $1000 price range, look elsewhere

– Some key combinations might not work well (mine can’t do the “G” and “T” well) – Gaming performance is rather low compared to other gaming laptops in this price range, even up to x2-x2.5 (y510p, np7355) – Only one USB 3.0 and no display port

The Acer V7-482PG-6629 (V7-482PG-6662 in Canada) is Acer’s new high end ultraportable gaming machine. The V7-482PG has two versions currently in the US. The more expensive 482PG-9884 ($1300) with an I7-4500U CPU and 12GB of RAM and the cheaper 482PG-6629 with an I5-4200U CPU and 8GB of RAM which sells currently for around $900. Both sport a GT 750M DDR3 GPU.

The V7-482PG-6629 is interesting gaming laptop for several reasons. First, it is highly portable for a laptop with such gaming capabilities under $1000. The GT 750M DDR3 is a capable GPU and the I5-4200U is fast enough. Secondly, the V7-482PG make use of more energy efficient components and has a stated battery performance of “up to 8 hours” and third, it has excellent 1080p IPS touchscreen. The combination of those with the fact it is selling for $900 makes it an interesting candidate for people who look for an high end ultraportable laptop with some reasonable gaming performance.

In the box

The V7-482PG, PSU and some discs. The battery is integrated.

Build quality, Case, Design and Looks

Build quality and inner parts. The V7-482PG does it well in my opinion. The case itself is a plastic but a good and sturdy one. It won’t flex even around the screen panel and the outer lid is the most rigid I’ve tested so far and though flexible a bit, it does provide good housing for the panel. Screen hindges are also well built with no flex nor instability under reasonable force. All inner keyboard / palm area is made almost entirely of one part and won’t flex neither including around the keyboard keys themselves.Touchpad surface feel in place too.

Overall, I feel very good about the V7-482PG build quality. It doesn’t feel cheap at all and the screen is well protected compared to other laptops. The build quality is not on the same level of high end aluminium / unibody cases and if you’ll hold it from the edges, it will bent a bit, but for the common use, the build quality is very good.

The layout of the connection ports could be more convenient. The power button is located in the left side, near the USB port. I’ve pressed it mistakenly several times and though it’s not that bad, it’s still annoying. Another thing is that the V7-482PG has only 1 USB 3.0 connection port and no display port which is makes it less future proof. The V7-482PG comes with the new and mysterious “Acer coverter port” which according to Acer : “The Acer Connector Port uses the same physical port as a Mini DisplayPort, but is designed to connect to an Acer proprietary cable. If you connect a DisplayPort monitor, Acer cannot guarantee the functionality of the monitor.” Though it is not totally clear how to get each cable, it seems that some had success with using a generic converter utilizing a displayport functionality, so I guess it should be ok in some way and you could use it as another HDMI / displayport port

The inner components of the V7-482PG are all accessible by unscrewing the bottom case part out.

You will notice that the the GPU and CPU are both on the rear part of the V7 on the opposite side of one another, with their heatpipes making love. Small vents take air from the bottom and throw it out backwards, away from the rear of the laptop.

The 24GB Kingston mSSD is accessible and, I guess, also replaceable. The Intel 7260 Wireless-N wireless adapter too, in case you’d like to replace it with an adapter that supports 802.11ac (it only support up to 802.11n). I didn’t try it for myself and I hope there is no whitelist encoded to the bios.

The looks. The Acer V7 looks pretty good and pleasing to my eyes. It has a sleek silver-metal ‘sophisticated’ design with gentle brushed aluminium finish (though it is a plastic case). The screen bezel is black and shiny, imitating maybe the Mac looks. Curves are rounded carefully and elegantly. The V7 looks are elegant without a show-off. I like it.

Keyboard and touchpad

Keyboard. The keyboard keys are a bit stiff for my taste and it took me an hour to get used to it, but they are not uncomfortable to use. After using the V7-482PG keyboard a little more I can say that is is quite comfortable. The feedback is rather good and you can type rapidly if you are used to the keyboard. However, I has not too few misclicks – when I type fast, some of the clicks won’t have a result on the screen and that’s annoying. The keys are well spaced and clicking also does not produce too much noise. The keys have grainy-sandy finish to them which is nice. Overall, I’d say the keyboard is rather good and you can type rapidly, but at least in my opinion, the keys need to be more sensitive. Bottom line, you get a very nice keyboard.

Touchpad. It took me some time to get used to the touchpad as well. The surface itself is nice to touch, but the finger movement is not always smooth and you might feel as if the surface is too rough with your finger making little bounces. You’ll have to move your finger in a ‘cramping’ movement in order to avoid it. Another thing which might be an issue for some is the unified buttons part – you won’t be able to right click and left click altogether, though click itself is ok. Otherwise the touchpad is rather good and responsive and I’d say it’s rather good.

Sound & Speakers

The V7-482PG comes with 4 built-in speakers located at the bottom corners. The sound quality can be descried as good, but not very good. Bass is lacking a bit and sound is a bit grainy/unclear too, but more importantly, the sound lacks some deepness, maybe because it is too muffled by the case, but even when I put my ears close to the speakers it sounds like that. The mids and low mids are better, though, it seems to me.

Saying that, the speakers are really loud and could feel a large room. I guess the for movies and especially games the enjoyment potential is high, remembering that the screen is great too. All and all, don’t except too much of the speakers and I think your $50 10 years speakers should be better.

General Subjective Performance Experience

The V7-482PG comes with a 500GB HDD and 24GB mSSD. I must say, though it might be just me, the SSHD in the Y510p and other laptops I’ve used performs better and the system feels snappier with one of the Seagates’ SSHDs. However, the 24GB mSSD is very noticeable after running the same software / game several times. Running Skyrim, quit and running again resulted in saved games loading in 2-3 seconds instead 8-10.

I feel like the SSHD path is better for many, as the drive’s controller sees it all, both the HDD and the SSD.

Gaming Performance

The test includes some synthetic benchmarks and a small amount of games and the point is to give a reference benchmarks compared to other machines. For more numbers are available over the web in sites like Notebookcheck.com, Anandtech and many other excellent over the web.

There is an issue with the V7-482PG. Whenever I run Prime95 alongside Furmark or even GPU-Z, the CPU automatically clocks down to 1700-1800MHZ per core. This is strange, since GPU-Z does not stress the GPU by itself. ThrottleStop had no effect whatsoever. The good news is that I didn’t see the same behavior with games, even with Crysis 3 the clocks were set around 2300MZ.

Last thing, the GPU in this machine is the GT 750M DDR3 version which is limited compared to the GDDR5 version (see here). Keep that in mind. By the way, this is the same GPU as in the Asus N550JV.

Test Methods & Drivers

Drivers in use were the latest beta 331.58 drivers. Windows 8 fully updated as I write these lines. HWInfo to measure temperatures and GPU/CPU loads.

The settings I used in each game differ from one to another and the reason is that I tried to find the highest settings which still let you play smoothly. All games are tested with 1080p resolution. There are enough standard benchmarks over the web to compare performance of different GPUs. For each game, I also wrote how I felt playing, if it was smooth or not.

Power mode was set to “High Performance”.

Synthetic 3D benchmarks

Games benchmarks!

Just to get some of the picture in an image. I’ve included both performance in highest or near highest settings and performance (average FPS) in some (at least) high settings to show a more complete picture.

World of Tanks (WoT)

I’d suggest playing WoT on ‘High’ settings, but not the highest – you’ll get smooth gameplay and very good graphics.

Crysis 3, 1080p

Settings

FPS

Feel

Highest, AA on

20-25

Not totally smooth, but pretty playable, mainly due to the nature of the game

High, AA on

28-33

Smooth

LoL (League of Legends)

highest settings, 1080p resolution, a lot of units fighting and 5-6 players at a scene – around 45-60 FPS.

Crysis 3

TD = Texture Details, PP = Post Processing

Crysis 3, 1080p

Settings

FPS

Feel

‘Very High’ TD and Specs, FXAA

8-13

Not smooth, not playable

TD = ‘Very High’, Specs = ‘medium’, FXAA

15-22

Not smooth

TD, Specs = ‘Medium’, FXAA

15-23

A bit better than above but generally the same

TD, Specs = ‘Medium’, FXAA, 900p

23-33, usually around 25-27

Not smooth but playable

The V7-482PG doesn’t handle 1080p Crysis 3 very well, even on medium settings. I guess it is pretty much the fault of the G 750M DDR3. The GDDR5 version would do better – see the GDDR5 vs DDR3 comparison here.

Bioshock Infinite

Post Processing on ‘normal’ in all settings.

Bioshock Infinite, 1080p

Settings

FPS

Feel

Highest, Ambient Occlusion on ultra, PP on ‘normal’

Average: 20-22, Min: 19

Smooth

Very High Preset, Ambient Occlusion on very high

Average: 23-25

Smooth

Very High Preset, Ambient Occlusion on normal

Average: 28-33, Min: 27

Smooth

Throttling

No

Now, the Bioshock Infinite benchmark tool:

Bioshock Infinite Benchmark, 1080p

Settings

Max

Min

AVG

UltraDX11_DDOFSettings (option 1)

24.2

6

16

UltraDX11 Settings (option 2)

65

6

20.18

‘Very High’ Settings (option 3) – this is a DX10 benchmark

32

8

22

Don’t mind the Minimal values in the benchmark. I think they are the loading / scene transition parts – I have not seen really such drops in performance.

The V7-482PG fairs well in Bioshock and you’ll be able to run it on some quite high settings. I would suggest zigzagging around the very high preset for start and see how it goes for you.

Skyrim

AO on = Ambient Occlusion on ‘quality’ settings in the Nvidia Control Center.

Skyrim, 1080p

Settings

FPS

Feel

‘Ultra’, FXAA (AAx4), AO on

14-19, AVG: 15-16

Not smooth, not enjoyable

‘Ultra’, FXAA (AAx4), AO off

18-28, AVG: 23-24

Smooth enough to be played

‘High’, FXAA (AAx4), AO on

15-22, AVG: 18

Not smooth, not enjoyable

‘High’, FXAA (AAx4), AO off

26-45, AVG: 27-31

Very smooth

Throttling

No

I would suggest that you test for yourself if Ambient Occlussions (AO) plays a significant role. You can enable it through the Nvidia Control Center. Skyrim will run very smooth on ‘High’ preset with AO turned off (which is he default).

Tomb Raider

FXAA in all settings.

Tomb raider (2013), 1080p

Settings

FPS

Feel

‘Ultimate’

15-22, AVG: 18

Very jittery

‘Ultra’ (same as notebookcheck)

19-29, AVG: 23

Very jittery

‘Ultra’, SSAO ultra, Tesselation on

20-33, AVG: 25

Not smooth, but playable

‘Ultra’, SSAO ulra, PP off, Tesselation off

22-37, AVG: 29

Not smooth, but highly playable

‘Ultra’, SSAO off, PP off, Tesselation off

22-39, AVG: 30

Not smooth, but highly playable

Throttling

No

The V7-482PG-6629 with its GT 750M DDR3 is able to run TombRaider on some high settings. I would suggest satating from ‘Ultra’ with SSAO on(AO = Ambient Occlusion) and trying to disable/lower some settings while keeping SSAO, which really adds to the graphics.

Note the GT 750M DDR3 is seriously outperformed by the GDDR5 version.

Borderlands 2

Fun game, but why do I need to kill these cute bullymongs :\

Borderlands2, 1080p

Settings

FPS

Feel

Highest, 8xAF, FXAA, all on including Ambient Occlusion

13-20, AVG: 17-18

Not smooth

Highest, 8xAF, FXAA, all on including Ambient Occlusion, Physx on medium

The Physx effects of Borderlands 2 really give the G 750M DDR3 a run for his money. You probably better set Physx on ‘low’, though it really adds to the gameplay.

Dota 2

Running a replay from some tournament (Match ID: 271145478)

Dota 2, 1080p

Settings

FPS

Feel

Highest, Rendering level set to 100%

MIN: 31,. AVG: 34-35

Very smooth

Throttling

No

Thermals, Throttling & Noise handling

The V7-482PG temperatures are OK. I haven’t seen any throttle, but it is not hot here currently. Temperatures were just under 80C for the CPU and GPU in bioshock, which is ok. The surface itself get warm around as you get closer to the CPU and GPU areas, which are in the upper left and right of the laptop. The palm rest temperature remain reasonable, but you’ll notice the heat in the upper part of the keyboard, though it hasn’t prevented me from using it.

The exhaust fans are located where the GPU and CPU are, in the rear left and right areas with the air coming in from below and thrown out backwards. Placing the laptop on some straight surface, the exhaust holes are actually partially blocked but that’s not too much of a problem for the V7 as we’ll see. The bottom of the V7 is cool enough that you can put it on your legs, but the rear will get too hot under load, at least for me – a cooling pad or some kind of object that will elevate the V7 above the surface a bit will do the work and will also assist the ventilation as the the ventilation holes will be less blocked.

Tests:

1. Idle. “Balanced” power mode.

2. Bioshock on highest settings and Crysis 3 on some very high settings.

3. Prime95 only. 4 thread, ‘torture’ test.

4. Prime95 (max heat settings) + Furmark (1280×720). This is compatible with notebookcheck tests of their ‘stress tests, in order to create comparable results.

5. Youtube 1080p movie play.

* Each test was executed with a cooling pad attached too (CoolerMaster U2)

Test conditions:

The results are the maximal temperature attained after long period of activity. Room temperature: 26 C – 27 C.

Throttling.

No throttling was observed by me. The CPU and GPU comes close, though, at 90-93C. Even with the laptop sitting directly on a surface with the exhaust fans partially blocked, it won’t throttle. However, in more hot places / days with some 4-5 degrees higher, it might as well get too hot and throttle.

Noise.

Under light load the V7-482PG is rather silent. Running some games results in fans spinning fast, but I wouldn’t say it’s ‘loud’. The only moments when the V7 got loud were under Prime95 + Furmark test or in other words – full system load.

Cooling pad effectiveness

Using the CoolerMaster U2 ($20 from eBay), the temperatures went down by around 3 degrees for the CPU and 5 for the GPU. You’ll notice that according to my results, it mainly helped under full load.

Overclocking the I5-4200U and the GT 750M

Unfortunately, I had no success overclocking the I5-4200U. It was not because of instability, but because it was locked. Intel XTU was no help either.

The GT 750M DDR3 doesn’t have a lot of room for overclocking. First, the DDR3, which is its main bottleneck, is already set on 900MHZ (1.8GHZ effective). I’ve overclocked it by 20% and could play games, but I don’t think there is much more room ahead. The GT 750M core clocks were already quite high with Turbo Boost, reaching 1167MHZ and again – this is not the bottleneck.

Here are the results of the DDR3 memory overclocked to 1080MHZ (20% increase):

Some games will benefit from the memory overclock with TombRaider significant ~20%, ~13% in Skyrim, 12.5% in Bioshock and little more in Borderlands 2. It might seem a little, but with somewhat lower settings in each game, you’d be able to get a jittery/lagging gameplay to a rather smooth one. It will also heat the system more, but that might not be a problem in most games.

Screen & Screen quality

Model

B140HAN01.1

Resolution

1080p

Touch

10 fingers

Matte

Yes

Stated value

Measured value

Color coverage (stated)

72% NTSC

71% NTSC, 76% adobeRGB, 98% sRGB

Brightness

300cd/m^2

267cd/m^2

Contrast

500 / 1 (min)

710 / 1 (min)

Viewing Angles (stated)

89 / 89 / 89 / 89

seems so

The V7-482PG screen is a 1080p AHVA anti-glare touchscreen. It is a high quality display even compared to high end laptops in this price range and especially laptops with some reasonable gaming capabilities. The only one that compares to it in this price range currently is the Clevo W230ST that selling for $1000 with a GX 765M – but we’ll talk about it later.

You’ll notice quickly the the image is clear and the colors are vibrant with excellent viewing angles – no problem to look from any angle. Text reading an writing is fun and easy.

The screen is obviously is not calibrated when you get it and you should try and calibrate it somehow or use my icc calibration file

Contrast & Brightness is quite good with a minimal value of 720 : 1. Measured black levels at 100% are good but not great, however at somewhat lower brightness you get very good black levels and good contrast. Subjectively, the blacks look good and I could write and read small characters – a thing I can’t do with some other LCDs, like m personal desktop one.

Brightness is good but not great with maximal value of 267cd/m^2 and it will be probably a problem to use the V7 in too lighted conditions. I did use the V7 during the day outside in the shade and it was ok though.

Colors are very good, after calibration, but you’ll notice the good vibrant colors right away. You can see in the graphs below that the sRGB color palette is almost entirely covered and it shows – the Y510p screen lacks reds and you can see it. I enjoyed looking at the screen from the moment I got it.

Viewing angles. The stated viewing angles of 89 / 89 / 89 / 89 are largely met. Besides the deviation in brightness when looking from some angle, the colors are the same, text and pictures remain clear.

Touch – I haven’t test it a lot, but the touch function works and responsive. I didn’t have problems with it. It does get 10 fingers as advertised, that I can tell it does get it. Drawing some neat 3-years old kid stuff with “Kids Doodle” which is an Android app only currently, but I ran it with BlueStack software. Here are the marvelous results:

Bottom line – Excellent screen really and the touch is a nice touch. You get very good contrast, good blacks and excellent viewing angles. Colors are great and it won’t take a moment before you realize your images look more alive. Reading and writing will be easier too thanks to the relatively good blacks and contrast levels. Anandtech LCD analysis of the V7-482PG-9884 show even better results, but I can’t figure out how they measured it. Anyway, the numbers are very good.

The brightness should have been better though and I’m not sure but I feel like the W230ST screen I reviewed (here) was nicer too look at (but maybe I was just remember the W230ST for good). A problem for more consumers will be the calibration – there was a big difference between the calibrated and uncalibrated screen. I’ve added the ICC and ICM files of my calibration, feel free to use them and tell how it works for you.

Battery Performance

Battery performance is generally very good for light / medium use. The display brightness is set on 60%. “Power Saver” mode was used for testing idle state and “balanced” power mode was used for the rest.

Load level

Running time (hours)

Idle

7-8

Light load: light web browsing, reading/writing

6-7

1080p youtube video

5-6

Competing gaming laptops / Alternatives

The Acer V7-482PG has two main categories in my eyes. The first is the around $800 – $1000 price range and the second is the category of an ultraportable sub-15.6″ gaming laptop.

For the price range of $1000, there are actually much faster options if you are looking for a high performance gaming laptop, with the fastest of them are Lenovo Y510p with GT 750M SLI or the likes of the Sager NP7355 or the 13.3″ Clevo W230ST, both with GTX 765M. All of them have way higher gaming performance. So, no real competition there.

However, if you look for an ultraportable gaming laptop in this price range, the options narrow down a lot. The best options remain:

1. Probably the most interesting candidate, the Clevo W230ST is selling for $1000 with an I7 and a GTX 765M. It is considerably faster for gaming with easily twice the performance in some games and also have a very good 1080p IPS screen which I really liked (non-touch). However, the battery is worse with around 3-4 hours of use, which is about half of the V7. It is also bulkier and more ‘plasticy’ in look. This is a good option for those who look for a small gaming machine without the need for long battery running times or slim measures. Review and (2, 3, 4)

2. The Lenovo Y410p with GT 755M GDDR5 and I7. Selling for around $750-$850 (use B&N gold discount). The GT 755M GDDR5 will have an advantage thanks to the GDDR5 memory mainly, but otherwise, there is no advantage to the Y410p: the screen is rather low quality 900p screen, it’s bulkier and the battery won’t last as long as the V7. But the screen is the main issue. If you are hooking the laptop to an external monitor to play, this is a good option though. Good user review

3. MSI GE40 900p version 14.0″ gaming laptop with GTX 760M, I7 and 900p screen. Selling for around $1100, it has significant advantage in gaming performance over the V7 and a good 7-9 hours battery performance, but its screen is lousy and it gets very hot. So this is really your choice, but for me the screen is a deal breaker, plus it is priced more than the W230ST which is faster and has way better screen. So I wouldn’t suggest buying it. Review and review and another one

These are the three most interesting alternatives in this price range, in my opinion. I will cover more options in a future post, though, but I don’t think there are better option than these currently.

Now, if you are not limited to $1000, there are more options, besides these three which are still good:

1. The Gigabyte P34G (1, 2, 3 ,4) 14.0″ gaming laptop. At 1.6-1.7kg (~3.6lbs) with a slim case and equipped with a GTX 760M, I7, 128GB SSD (mSata form) and 750GB 7200RPM HDD but also an IPS 1080p screen, the P34G really offers a lot. It is priced around $1400 currently (see the links) which is $500 above the V7-482PG-6629/6662, but packs a lot more features. The SSD + HDD, the lower weight and higher gaming performance (which is very close to the GTX 765M). The only problem with it is that early tests show that it has low battery performance, but it might get better with drivers or bios updates. Review and preview

I would suggest that laptop for those who look to get a higher performance slim and low weight 14.0″ gaming laptop as a one package out of the factory, and don’t care too much about battery performance. Personally, I find it hard to recommend this one as the W230ST has the same performance + very good screen, only the slimness and weight are worse.

2. Alienware m14 – with GTX 765M, I7, good IPS 1080p screen and generally good build quality and keyboard, the Alienware is a good machine. However, it is not slim, it is quite heavy at almost 3kg, its battery performance is low (around 3-4 hours of light use tops) and it costs around $1400 before tax and shipping and without an SSD. So, compared to the P34G and even the W230ST it is hard to find justification for it. review (and 2, 3)

3. MSI GE40 1080p version which sells for around $1400. The screen’s quality is unknown to me yet, but it is a 14.0″ 1080p screen. As the P34G, it also includes a 128GB mSata drive + 750GB 7200RP HDD, but the screen is not an IPS and it is heavier at ~4.4lbs (though not too heavy in my eyes) with the main disadvantage being the screen and the main advantage being the battery performance. Heat is a problem but I don’t know if the P34G heats too.

I’ve not included some models like the Razer Blade which costs way way more and give no added value really compared to the P34G or MSI GE40 1080p version, for example.

Upcoming ucompetitors:

1. Lenovo u430p 14.0″. At around 3.75lbs it is lighter than the V7 and the GT 730M + I5-U CPU should provide good gaming performance as well, though lower. According to a review of the u430p, the battery performance is also very good, maybe even better. However, the screen options currently are not good and actually quite average, and also, it seems like the price will be roughly around the same price of the V7.

2. Only a guess – an udpate to the Samsung ATIV 6 or some similar model. The ATIV 6 has a good 1080p screen and a Radeon 8770M so it should be a good competitor. However, it is a 15.6″ laptop and the battery performance is not good. We’ll see.

We’ll discuss why or why not the V7-482PG in the conclusion below.

Conclusion

Now, it is clear that the V7-482PG-6629/6662 is a good laptop really. It offers a very good combination of an excellent 1080p IPS touchscreen alongside good gaming performance, very good battery performance relatively slim measures / small form factor, good build quality and professional looks.

But the thing with the V7-482PG is that it’s the only one that offers this combination in this price range and even above, since no laptop currently offers good battery performance with such a good screen and at least high-midrange gaming performance. Though the V7-482PG gaming performance is lower (even significantly) compared to the fastest laptop in the price range, it is not aimed to compete with them, but rather to offer a cheaper complete solution. The V7 does have some drawbacks like having only one USB 3.0 port and no display port at all, or the keyboard that could have been better, but these are less important issue for most.

For those who are looking for a cheap(er) ultraportable gaming laptop and are not concerned about having the highest gaming performance, the V7-482PG is probably perfect as it is a very complete solution of high quality ultraportable laptop which offers also a good enough gaming performance and for $900 that’s currently unbeatable. As I wrote above, the V7-482PG aimed to offer a complete yet rather cheap ultraportable gaming solution and it does just that.

So, I would strongly recommend the V7-482PG for those who are mainly searching for a cheaper high quality road warrior, but one that also offer a gaming power that will let them play many games on some reasonable settings. For those who look for a small form gaming laptop with highest gaming performance available, I would suggest the Clevo W230ST with GTX 765M and excellent 1080p IPS (non-touch) screen.

I just picked up one of these with a I5-4200U and 4GB 750m refurbished off Ebay for $525. Hoping it works out

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

with 1080p?

SkunkApe

Yeah with the 1080p IPS screen.

Abdul

How do you think this laptop would compare to the new thinkpad yoga 14 with GT840M?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

good question. Really, except the tablet ability of the yoga 14, what has been really improved? the V7 has higher 3D performance, probably the same display panel, at least as good battery performance and around the same weight.. I guess that for $800 the Yoga 14 might be a good option, as it has probably better keyboard

Abdul

Thanks for the quick response. The V7 482pg with full hd display is no longer available in US. I guess I’m gonna have to go with the Thinkpad Yoga 14 now.

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

you can go with the Gigabyte P34Gv2 which would be better, no? and you can wait for other options too

Abdul

Yeah I could but I value better battery life over gaming oomph as I am a programmer and need carry to my laptop around lot. Also I am not a hardcore gamer but I do play a few games (NFS, Fifa 15, COD MW, Dota 2) once a while. I’m hoping the GT840m will be able to handle those titles.

That’s the 5842 which has both GT 750M and 1080p – refurbished for $500!

Abdul

OMG! thankyou so much! Are refurbished laptops reliable/durable? Because I am getting just a 3 month warranty..

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

they should be, generally – you’ll have to thoroughly test it

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

any news?

Abdul

It turns out the deal on the v7 was only for 2 days. By the time I made my mind up the deal was gone. So I ended up purchasing the Yoga 14. Haven’t received it yet. Fingers crossed that it will end up being the right option. Thank you for your help. Really appreciate it.

Thanks for the link. I was going to get it through a buddy of mine anyways who works for IBM. They get extra discounts on Lenovo products. The Yoga 14 costs about $850 when bought through the IBM account.

Abdul

Also are you planning to do a review on the Thinkpad Yoga 14?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

do you think I should? I don’t know, it’s not THAT interesting and my budget is pretty limited For $850 it’s OK, but not a lot more than that. If you could find the V7 refurbished for $700 it would be better

Can you replace the display yourself, if needed?

Abdul

I think you’re right. The Thinkpad yoga 14 is anything but flashy. You could maybe do a review on one of the broadwell laptops.

The refurbished V7 for $700 – the full hd model? I hope so. Changing the display to a Full hd one myself – I guess I could but going through all the hassle would still get me a laptop that has about the same specs as the Yoga 14 without the “yoga” and the durability of a thinkpad.

Crap! I guess its about $80 – $90 cheaper to get the v7 and replace the screen to the IPS full hd one. I was pretty sure about getting the yoga 14 but now I am back to square one. Need help here…

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

do you specifically want something thin and lightweight?

Abdul

Yes. As I said earlier I am a programmer and need carry to my laptop around lot. Hence I need battery life more than high end gaming performance. I still do game once in a while though. P.S. I would void the warranty if I replace the screen on the V7 right?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

I think it will void the warranty (but you can put it back if needed) I trying to think what are the other options :

anon

I’m on windows 8.1, and I cant install the icc profile into color management. Am I missing something?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

did you try through the color management panel?

anon

yup. I tried adding it through the “associate color profile” dialog, and even tried going into the system-wide settings. But when I click add, it doesn’t show up in the list of profiles. Other ones I’ve been fooling around with add fine though.

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

strange! do you get any error message? you have the 1080p display, right?

I’ll try to create another one and we’ll try it

anon

Yup I have the 1080p display. It’s strange, I was looking at the file sizes, and the normal ones I’ve been trying out are ~10kb, but the ones you’ve uploaded are only ~2kb? So i’m guessing the file itself must have something to do with it. And I didn’t get any error messages, it just doesn’t show up in the list of profiles.

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

yea, I see it now. I must be doing something wrong. I have to go now, but I’ll check it later and reply

Nice review, I found that out of the box the display resolution is set to 1366 x 768, is there some way to change a setting to get the 1080p that you have on your model? I have the same V7-482PG-6629, got it on sale at Amazon.

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

someone on reddit told me the same thing – he sent it back and got a new laptop without the problem

and no, it shouldn’t require any change in settings – did you check the resolution settings (right click on the desktop)?

Mike

yeah, i checked the resolution settings, I thought it might be something related to switching the graphics but the built in HD 4400 apparently supports up to 3200 x 2000 @60 Hz, 3840×2160@30Hz, do you know of a way to query the panel, to see its native resolution?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

its native resolution is 1920×1080. You can check the panel model with HWInfo and check the specs (panelook for example). I’ve also written the panel model serial in the review

wow, it is totally a different display.. Are we talking about the V7-482PG-6629 / V7-482PG-6662? If yes, then this panel should be really different. The one you linked to is a low quality 720p display, not a (relatively) high quality 1080p display

Mike

I know. That’s the model number V7-482PG-6629 on the bottom of the laptop. I’m on the phone with Amazon, I’m returning it and I’ll probably get it for $850 from one of the other resellers you list on your other page. Hopefully Amazon changes their description, but, we’ll see.

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

the description is ok, they have some problem with their stocks or something

will

I also bought this laptop from Amazon in December 2013. did you ever get your laptop to go 1920×1080 resolution? I updated all my drivers and my Acer V7-482PG-6629 still ONLY displays 1366×768 … Shouldn’t it display 1920×1080 out of the BOX??? I gave up and returned the latop to Amazon.

Mike

I returned it as well. Could be an Acer stock problem. I ordered another from tigerdirect, same price, should be here tomorrow, i’ll let you know

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

waiting for your news

Mike

So i got the V7-482PG-6692, MFG date 2013/09/24 from tigerdirect and it has the 1080p screen

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

excellent

update the bios from the Acer site (very quick and easy) and update to Windows 8.1. It seems to me things go faster in this case

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

how is it for you?

Mike

I haven’t had a chance to really play with it yet, but I’ll have some time this weekend, but so far, seems great.

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

send it back, as Mike said – seems like there is some problem with Acer’s stocks. You shouldn’t install nothing to get 1080p resolution. Just send it back

thoroughbred

Synthetic 3D benchmarks were tested on full hd res?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

this is the free 3DMark version so it is the 1280×1024 resolution. You can find similar results on notebookcheck

thoroughbred

Thanks so much for response,amazing review,just what’ive needed!!!

Jerome

Is there a big difference between tis and the i7 model?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

Mainly the I7 vs I5 issue. For gaming the significance is minimal

Jerome

So the only real difference is the processor? Which one would you suggest?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

for gaming, definitely the I5. The I7 won’t benefit you with such a GPU. Plus, the I7 version is really overpriced – around $1200-$1300 and you don’t really get any advantage

You can see availability in the beginning of the review

Liam Kelly

Thanks a lot man. I think ill just get the I5 model, since its so close should i just wait for black friday?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

Liam Kelly and Jerome are the same?

Yea, better wait – the price won’t go up from the current prices. Also, the new Lenovo T440p might have some nice deal

Ye-Gon Ryoo

Loved the review! Do you reckon I would be able to get away with refitting this with PC17000 2133Mhz 2x4GB RAMs and overclocking those by about 10%? Wonder how much of a difference it would make…

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

Thanks!

I don’t think the RAM will help the V7 in the gaming department + there is only available Memory slot – 4GB are already installed

Juan

it´s true that have backlit keyboard?

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

yes, white light

Eric

Can you add a picture of the backlit keyboard? Thanks!

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

missed your comment somehow – yea, I’ll post!

Eric

BTW, great review!

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

thanks man! what do you think is missing?

Eric

Hi! I would say, what about booting time, and pictures of the power supply and the backlit keyboard, for the rest it’s very complete!

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/ Junky

I’m sorry, I don’t have it anymore I was a bit confused lately – I’m sorry I didn’t post the data

The boot is quick after you boot several times and the mSSD is loaded with right OS stuff

Eric

Hi! Don’t be sorry au contraire, great review, the best one I found on the web yet for that computer!